Gough Bunting
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| Gough Bunting | ||||||||||||||
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| Rowettia goughensis (Clarke, 1904) |
The Gough Bunting or Gough Finch (Rowettia goughensis) is a songbird species. Traditionally considered a bunting and placed in the family Emberizidae, it is actually neither a bunting nor a true finch, but belongs belong to the tanager-finches, a group of finch-like birds in the family Thraupidae.
It is endemic to the remote South Atlantic Gough Island which politically belongs to the British overseas territory of Saint Helena. Its natural habitats are temperate shrubland and subantarctic grassland.
It was formerly classified as a Vulnerable species by the IUCN[1]. But new research has shown that its population has collapsed and it is on the verge of extinction due to the introduced population of house mice (Mus musculus), noted for its unusual aggressiveness[2], competing with the birds for food and eating their eggs and nestlings. Consequently, it is uplisted to Critically Endangered in 2008[3].
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (BLI) (2004). Rowettia goughensis. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 27 July 2007.
- BirdLife International (BLI) (2008): [2008 IUCN Redlist status changes]. Retrieved 2008-MAY-23.
- Wanless, R.M.; Angel, A.; Cuthbert, R.J.; Hilton, G.M. & Ryan, P.G. (2007): Can predation by invasive mice drive seabird extinctions? Biol. Lett. 3(3): 241-244. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2007.0120 PDF fulltext Supplementary video Supplementary image
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